waterworks

we lay breathless, our bodies contorted, like fallen sculpture, into comically, almost campily inelegant configurations. spent lovers, i mused, have an effortless way of assuming conformations that would tax the most limber of contortionists.
the hi-fi exulted in having outlasted us, just this once; the digitally remastered orchestra taunted us with a frenetic cadenza, each of the violinist’s feverish strokes a triumphant gibe at the enervated figures concealing our reinvigorated hearts, but then fell silent as the disc whirred slowly to a halt.
the deafening silence was broken only by the gradual diminuendo of our breath and heartbeat as they reluctantly reassumed their separate rhythms, accompanied by the muted susurrus of sweat-drenched, crumpled sheets.

and then it came.
it came in fine print, sotto voce, unobtrusively, drifting like cigarette smoke through the sultry, tropical air of the cramped room.
it came in long, languid, stylized cursive strokes.
a three-word surrender, without which victory is impossible.

i love you.

i lay motionless, facing away, my gaze fixed on the rivulets of condensation dripping down the passion-fogged window. smirking, i noted an analogy to many of my ill-fated, ill-advised previous relationships: alone, the drops could nearly hold their weight, but, once they crossed paths and the inevitable reaction occurred, they instantly succumbed to mutual gravity, plummeting to the sill in an increasingly grimy streak.
and, of course, others followed close behind, more often than not along the same well-greased downward path.ah, love, i thought, watching the drops commiserate in a tawny slough at the bottom of the window frame.

love.
what’s that you say, kid?
sure, it steams the windows of our rooms, and of our judgment, often to total opacity.
yeah, it makes us forget that our windows need to be cleaned; our bills paid; our arraignments attended.
mm-hmm, it shows us that, in order to power up the former of “you live, you learn” to the fullest, you’ve sometimes gotta power down the latter.

but.
what is it?

for one so often accused of having the soul of a woman, i felt a strange relief at searching for an objective definition.
so autistic, so robotic, yet so uniquely male of me to paw around for precise boundaries.
and such an extra burden, too; i felt a pang of empathy for those men who define their world mostly or entirely through definitions. for women — and, indeed, for me — to feel something is definition enough.

satchmo had the soul of a woman, too. man, if you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.
although maybe he had it backward.if you know what love is, you’ll never have to ask.

what is it?
i recalled the ruminations of more illustrious thinkers (feelers?), to which i added my own frenetic cadenza.

in the minds of some, perhaps most, men, these reservoirs are separable, practically independent, with separate inlets and outlets, and can be filled to wildly different levels.

in the soul of a woman, they are underlaid with an aquifer of slowly moving emotional groundwater, through which all of their levels gradually equalize. the levels will rise fastest if her lover’s tempest deluges all of them at once, but, even if the storm inundates nothing but the reservoir of ohmygodican’ttakeitanymoreiwannafuckyourmindbodyandsoulsothoroughly…, she will eventually find all of them full — to her surprise as much as to her reprobate lover’s possible chagrin.

and, once they have overflowed, woe betide the lover who lets them evaporate, even back to equilibrium levels.

Transitioning to polyphasic sleep involves a day heavily punctuated by brief episodes of REM sleep, which accelerates the mind’s integrative faculties.

Just now I was contemplating this oevre, and its defining quality, which I found echoed in Bane and Umberto Eco, but nowhere else… except perhaps Paglia, in a more intellectualized, and less masculine way.

Lacking a word, I arrived at the term “masculemmity” to describe the pronounced embracing of both poles.

I decided to integrate this word into the blue-green section of my koanic system… it’s a valuable personality trait that seems usually conferred by extensive and aesthetically heightened sexual experience.

#3Just now I was contemplating this oevre, and its defining quality, which I found echoed in Bane and Umberto Eco

any works in particular that you’d recommend?

it’s a valuable personality trait that seems usually conferred by extensive and aesthetically heightened sexual experience

sure.

this is definitely a positive feedback loop, too — there’s no doubt that having this trait also confers sexual experience, and also overlays that sexual experience with otherwise unattainable aesthetic heights.

Transitioning to polyphasic sleep involves a day heavily punctuated by brief episodes of REM sleep, which accelerates the mind’s integrative faculties.

so you’re trying polyphasic sleep, eh?

i’d love to see your log, if indeed you’re keeping one — that is something i’ve periodically entertained the thought of trying, but i’m dissuaded by how unforgiving and rigorous the requisite sleep schedule seems to be.
at this point my work and travel schedule, and the hyper-social nature of most of my endeavors, would allow neither the flexibility nor the solitude required for a polyphasic sleep schedule. but, if you have a great experience with it, i’ll file it away in my mental register as Something To Try Later.

The way everyone normally does it is to feel like a zombie for 2-3 weeks.

However, the goal of my experiments is not merely to adjust to polyphasic, but to find a way to adjust without using raw willpower to fight fatigue.

I think I’m getting there… tonight’s another night, another trial. The big challenge is entering REM sleep quickly without the benefit of massive fatigue. Which requires mind games, automation, careful habit design, and a few other weird hacks.

But yeah, I can hit REM sleep lying on my back on the floor in under 20 minutes right now, and wake up with just headphones. And I’m suffering no more than 15 minutes of fatigue per nap cycle. So the potential for flexibility with travel and a social schedule is there.

If I break through the circadian dead zone barrier in the next 24 hours, I’ll let you know.

Beautifully written. Thanks for the lesson in hydrogeology. If science had been taught in these terms in school, I might have listened more.

Probably over-thinking, but is it a confined, or unconfined aquifier? Does it matter?

In relationship terms, I think the rate of evaporation generally might depend on which reservoir is initially filled, water coming via the ohmygod reservoir being particularly prone to evaporation unless replenished (I appreciate that all will probably evaporate eventually when this one reaches bottom). Anything in hydrogeology which might explain this?

sd #8If science had been taught in these terms in school, I might have listened more
heh. well, if these terms, especially “ohmygod…”, had been taught in school, i may have, um, attended more often.

In relationship terms, I think the rate of evaporation generally might depend on which reservoir is initially filled,

i can’t decide whether you’re writing this with a serious expression or with a smirk. i also can’t decide whether you’d discourse on quasi-science better drunk, sober, or just tipsy.

water coming via the ohmygod reservoir being particularly prone to evaporation unless replenished

now, look what you’re doing here, taking me from poetic to fatuously nerdy in 4.4 seconds. but i’ll bite. i’d actually disagree with this one; i’d say that’s the one that evaporates most slowly, if indeed it evaporates at all.
in other words, a thorough fucking can leave such a strong imprint that it digs a well even below the proverbial drought-level water table — an imprint that will essentially never evaporate, even after heart-rending betrayals that not only evaporate but drain the other springs.
i see two potential vulnerabilities in this claim: first, i may just be a sexual idiot savant who sees things this way because i’m not good at filling the other inlets; second, it’s impossible to have a truly thorough fucking without the concomitant mindfucking, which in turn will spill over into the other wells.

but, i maintain that this one evaporates the most slowly, indeed that (at least the bottom layer of) it just doesn’t evaporate at all. the passing of time and the interposition of geographical and emotional distance can lay a cloak of leaves over it, but that just makes you get soaked that much more when you tread on that cloak and fall headlong into things that were better left dormant.

(I appreciate that all will probably evaporate eventually when this one reaches bottom). Anything in hydrogeology which might explain this?

i can’t decide whether you’re writing this with a serious expression, with a smirk, or both. i also can’t decide whether you’d discourse on quasi-science better drunk, sober, or just tipsy.

i’m well out of my purview here, but i suppose we could talk about differences in the relative humidity above each well, higher values of course stifling evaporation.
but i think you’re just trying to coax enough quasi-science to ruin the mood, so uh uh, ain’t goin there.

there’s also the added consideration that this is the only reservoir that can’t be drained (as opposed to just being left to evaporate according to time’s caprices).
meaning, it’s possible to drain the other wells dry, via betrayal or neglect. but this one isn’t subject to either of those influences. i.e., betrayal is essentially impossible (that would involve changing from a good lover into a bad lover, a situation i don’t find realistic), and neglect sometimes has a curious way of causing this particular spring to rise, especially if the woman in question has the typical masochistic streak.

http://www.banedad.blogspot.com, his personal stuff and fiction.
As for Eco, I have only read “The Name of the Rose,” and “Foucalt’s Pendulum.” Both were excellent.
Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae

will check out, thanks.

The way everyone normally does it is to feel like a zombie for 2-3 weeks.

However, the goal of my experiments is not merely to adjust to polyphasic, but to find a way to adjust without using raw willpower to fight fatigue.

I think I’m getting there… tonight’s another night, another trial. The big challenge is entering REM sleep quickly without the benefit of massive fatigue. Which requires mind games, automation, careful habit design, and a few other weird hacks.

i’ve got to ask, how’s this gonna square with keeping up a physique?
it seems like an interesting hack, but it also seems more than a bit incompatible with the pursuit of corporeal perfection.

i’d say that’s the one that evaporates most slowly, if indeed it evaporates at all.
in other words, a thorough fucking can leave such a strong imprint that it digs a well even below the proverbial drought-level water table — an imprint that will essentially never evaporate, even after heart-rending betrayals that not only evaporate but drain the other springs.

I don’t know about this. Didn’t you once say you had lost women by not being beta enough, which doesn’t quite fit with this theory. At the very least, you need to keep filling up (sorry) this reservoir. I agree that most women have a masochistic streak but even masochism has its limits unless leavened by good sex occasionally.

sd #17
you’ve got quite the memory there, but be careful not to confuse losing the girl — her physical presence, her desire to remain exclusively mine — with losing her heart (or, perhaps more aptly, with losing her reptilian brain).
in other words, “i just can’t do this anymore” doesn’t necessarily imply “i don’t want you anymore”.